Patent publications WO 0234450 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,161,643 disclose welding guns having a pistol-type handle, including a pivotable grip. These handles have not become generally popular for the reason of being heavy and only enabling one type of operating mode in which the hand is always under the body. Consequently, the models in general use are those without a handgun grip protruding from the body, but instead the body of a “welding gun” also functions at the same time as a grip or a handle.
In welding guns of this type, the welding wire and shielding gas are passed axially lengthwise through the handle. The handle has an extension in the form of an arcuate shank, having its end provided with a welding nozzle and a shielding gas dome surrounding the nozzle.
A problem with such welding guns is that, in the process of welding various types of joints, the hand position may be wrong and the hand becomes tired as a result of having to support the welding gun. This makes welders susceptible to neck and shoulder ailments and the arm and palm may develop repetitive stress injuries, such as tendovaginitis.
Patent publication U.S. Pat. No. 6,225,599 discloses a MIG-welding gun, the handle of which comprises two axially successive handle elements, with e.g. a 20° angle therebetween. Even this does not eliminate the problem that, in the case of some welding joints, such as in overhead fillet and horizontal vertical fillet welding processes, the welding gun must nevertheless be supported by a hand in a slightly raised position in which the hand becomes tired.
It is an object of the invention to provide an ergonomic MIG- or MAG-welding grip, which enables the position of the hand to be changed between various types of joint welding in such a way that, e.g. in overhead fillet welding and vertical horizontal fillet welding processes, the hand can be held at quite a low level in a rest position while the body of a handle rests on top of the hand, whereby the hand does not get tired as easily as in the case of currently available welding guns. This object is accomplished by the invention on the basis of the characterizing features presented in the appended claims.